Castle Perilous

Elsewhere, And Back Again

“At last I have you, Count Ciancia!”

From the floor Gene looked up at a man who was dressed in something that vaguely evoked The Three Musketeers and similar costume epics.

Gene said, “Huh?”

“I know not by what thaumaturgy you have contrived to change your appearance, or how this secret chamber was instantly revealed, but I know you, Count, for the fiend you are.”

“Wait a minute,” Gene said, struggling to his feet.

The man drew a rapier, whipped it about briefly, and fell into a fencing stance. “Be on your guard, sorcerer!”

“Hold it!” Gene yelled, raising his hand. “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m not this Count whatever you call him. You —”

“More lies!” the man hissed, anger flashing in his eyes. “You spew them like vomit from a drunkard!”

“That’s getting personal.” Gene glanced around. He couldn’t figure what happened after the floor had swallowed him. He’d fallen, but not far, and had wound up in darkness, briefly. Then the lights had come on, and … Was he still in the castle?

“Have at you!” The man charged.

Gene barely had time to draw his sword. He sidestepped the middle-aged man’s lunge, ran out of the alcove in which he’d found himself and into a spacious seventeenth century drawing room. He instantly realized that he’d just crossed a portal.

His antagonist chased after him, still yelling but now quite unintelligibly. On this side of the portal there’d be no communication at all.

Gene backed away, brandishing his sword. The weapons were mismatched, of course, broadsword against rapier, but Gene didn’t know enough about weaponry to guess who’d have the advantage, if any.

He found out quick. His opponent was a passable swordsman, and the rapier’s tip nearly skewered Gene three times before he had time to back out of range, parrying desperately. If Gene could bring the full force of the broadsword against the thin steel of the rapier’s blade, the rapier would break. But his opponent wasn’t about to let him do it. The man stayed with feint-and-lunge maneuvers that kept the rapier unpredictably darting about, avoiding contact with Gene’s heavy weapon.

The portal might close any second. He would somehow have to maneuver back toward the far wall. But Gene was not in charge. His opponent would determine who would go where. On the positive side, the man was no expert. Although he couldn’t fathom why, Gene had the feeling that he could hold his own with a fencing sword too. This flashed through his mind when he saw the crossed épées above the mantelpiece.

His back to the fireplace, he swung wildly with the broadsword and fended his opponent off, then overturned a stuffed chair to block him. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Gene reached back and fumbled with one of the crossed swords — it fell and rolled away. He reached again, grasped the remaining épée by its cupped hilt, and ran off toward the alcove.

“Coward!” the man yelled when Gene had recrossed the boundary. He was in the castle again — he could tell by the distinctive purplish-gray stone — but the chamber was a cul-de-sac. He had nowhere to run.

Gene switched the épée to his right hand and put it up against the man’s thrusting attack, neatly parrying and delivering a riposte that the man had trouble beating away.

The man’s expression changed. He was a little less sure of himself.

“Just who the hell are you?” Gene demanded.

“As if you didn’t know!” came the answer, along with a forceful beat against Gene’s sword and a savage lunge.

“I’m not Count Whozis,” Gene said, calmly beating back and riposting. “Isn’t that apparent by now?” The sword felt like part of his hand, as if he were born to be a swordsman.

“No other human dwells in this place. If you are not Giovanni Luigino, the Count di Ciancia, then you are one of his familiars, and if that is true, I should be dead! But I’m not. So you must be he, though you bear no resemblance to the fiend.”

“Okay —” Gene feinted, then attacked the man’s left shoulder. His opponent parried, but couldn’t riposte due to Gene’s expert follow-up attack to the middle. “What’s this guy done, anyway?”

“Damn you to hell! You know more than I what foul deeds are yours. I know only —” The man overreacted to Gene’s feint, leaving himself open to a quick lunge, which he had to hastily beat away, retreating. “I know only that you have raped my baby daughter and have forever soiled her reputation.”

“Hey look, if you want, I’ll marry the bitch.”

The man froze, his eyes wide. “You will?”

“Hell, yeah, if you’ll keep your shirt on.”

The man looked skeptical. “What sort of dowry will you demand?”

“Make it easy on yourself. Nothing, if you want. Or her hope chest, what do I care?”

“Done. You have my blessing.”

Three events happened then, almost but not quite simultaneously.

One: Snowclaw’s voice came out of thin air.

“Gene! I’m coming, pal!”

Two: a short, chubby young woman in a blue hooped gown and décolletage came bursting through the double doors in the left wall of the outer room. Following close behind was a thin, dissolute young man dressed in lavender pantaloons, hose, and white puffed-sleeve blouse. At the sight of Gene, an outraged father, and the unexplained hole in the drawing room wall, his pale eyebrows rose. He lifted a monocle.

“How very interesting,” he said.

“Father!” the girl shouted indignantly, her multiple chins quivering. “What on earth are you doing here?”

Turning, the man said, “Corabella?” Then he saw the count and drew a sharp breath. “You!”

Three: Snowy materialized in a dead run and slammed into Corabella’s father, sending him cartwheeling across the room.

Snowy was a little disoriented. “Hi, Gene,” he said. “Hey, I really did it!”

Corabella screamed. On Gene’s side of the portal the walls turned milky and began to waver.

“Snowy, quick!” Gene reached across and tugged at a handful of Snowclaw’s fur. Snowy got the idea and leaped across the boundary.

Darkness.

“Snowy?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Where are we?”

“The portal shut, and this room’s a dead end. Jesus, that was another close one.”

“You’re probably going to ask me where the hell I came from.”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Gene said.

“I was in that cage right up until a few seconds ago, and now I’m here. Just before that happened, I could see you. I wanted to help you, and suddenly I was here, helping you.”

“Congratulations! You got your magic power. Teleportation!”

“No kidding? Hey, that makes me a real magician, don’t it?”

“It sure does, big fella. Now, if we can get out of this hole.”

As if on cue, an oblong of light materialized to the left — an opening, leading into familiar castle architecture.

“Here we go,” Snowclaw said. “By the way, what was that scene all about? Looked like fun.”

“Seventeenth century Italy, maybe, but nobody’s ever said anything about time travel, so it must’ve been some goofy variant. I don’t know. We gotta find Linda.”

“I think I can do just that,” Snowclaw said.